The System is Fundamentally Broken AOC says.... - Page 3 - Politics Forum.org | PoFo

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#14987386
The irony is that Trump is actually holding the system together. Trump totally screwed up the shutdown and the transition to a Democrat House majority. A more skilful leader would have kept the Republicans united. A rock solid Republican Senate and President going up against Nancy Pelosi, could have created a full scale constitutional crisis. In Britain I would argue both May and Corbyn have been quite skilful in defending their positions hence the current dead lock.

May and Corby seem to have the right political spirit. The spirit of Petyr Baelish: "He would happily see this country burnt to the ground if he could be king of the ashes." Trump is actually lacking that kind of ruthlessness, as well as the skill to see it through.
#14987388
Rich wrote:The irony is that Trump is actually holding the system together. Trump totally screwed up the shutdown and the transition to a Democrat House majority. A more skilful leader would have kept the Republicans united. A rock solid Republican Senate and President going up against Nancy Pelosi, could have created a full scale constitutional crisis. In Britain I would argue both May and Corbyn have been quite skilful in defending their positions hence the current dead lock.

May and Corby seem to have the right political spirit. The spirit of Petyr Baelish: "He would happily see this country burnt to the ground if he could be king of the ashes." Trump is actually lacking that kind of ruthlessness, as well as the skill to see it through.


Bullshit. It's optics before the court of public opinion. He's giving them the rope he needs to hang them by letting them be them... An unstable coalition of lumpenproles, demoniac harpies, and professional victims. Look at Virginia, etc... And President Trump looks now like the sane and moderate one after the SOTU.

No, this guy is a master persuader, and he's got entirely enough ruthlessness. It's just that he's not as stupid as some of his more fanatical supporters, and the GOP establishment, who don't understand him any more than the feckless and hopelessly corrupt gerontocracy that controls the Democratic Party.
#14987393
The system will implode at some point. Can't continue with its unsustainable crap forever. I think the USA will lose a lot of leverage all over the world with time.

But it was bound to happen. Once the PRC has a larger market in general? That will be the end of that dominance over many financial aspects that they are used to dominating. I don't even predict it. The Wall Street Journal said it. Let me find the video @Rancid ?

#14987394
Tainari88 wrote:You keep voting for swamp people who claim to be anti establishment.

Trump is not a life long professional politician. I never said I was a communist or a socialist. I clearly am not. So you are making semantic distinctions that are irrelevant to me.

Tainari88 wrote:They are just selfish assholes who will make the establishment even worse.

I want to break the establishment, so making it appear worse to the electorate is an objective.

Tainari88 wrote:The lack of trusting the working class will do this nation in.

Well, if that's the case, then the US was done in a long time ago.

Rancid wrote:The system cannot be fixed.

We agree on this much.

Rancid wrote:They often successfully convince people in the professional classes to turn against the working classes. This is how you get lawyers, doctors, etc. etc. that vote against poor people.

For the most part, it is happening the other way around. The establishment is doing its level best to convince the working class that the middle class is racist, sexist, homophobic, etc. and therefore the enemy of the working class. This strategy works pretty reliably for black voters, but it is nowhere near as successful for Hispanic or women voters.

jimjam wrote:AOC is brilliant. She really knows how to point out the truth succinctly and with great energy.

Marx was a brilliant analyst as well. The problem is that the proposed remedy for the analyzed problem is far worse than the disease.

jimjam wrote:The fact that she garners so much ridicule from the plutocracy and their hoodwinked lemmings is a high compliment to her philosophy and methodology.

Her philosophy is to print money and give away the store. That's the fastest path to third world status. Every time it is tried it fails miserably. Her methodology is more or less the same as any other demagogue.

jimjam wrote:In case you haven't noticed kids, this is ISSUE #ONE. Even more important than THE WALL :eek: :lol: The issue that The Greedy Old Party and the plutocrats they enable try like hell to keep off of the national agenda. Better late than never. :)

The soak-the-rich plans — ones that were only recently considered ridiculously far-fetched or political poison — have received serious and sober treatment, even by critics, and remarkably broad encouragement from the electorate.

I have noticed. You'll noticed I haven't discouraged people like Elizabeth Warren signing on to a wealth tax, have you? My reason is different from yours. My reason is that it forces the ruling class to tack away from AOC, Warren, et. al. Personally, I think the situation in Virginia is an effort to maintain political correctness, while guaranteeing that the Democrats lose the presidency in 2020. That is why I scoff at political correctness and why I find it so amusing that you people who ran on endlessly about Judge Moore or Bret Kavanaugh are suddenly rendered mute.

At this juncture, if I were Northam, I would resign out of spite and throw my support behind Fairfax and urge him to fight against the charges. Again, my goal, in part, is defeating political correctness and restoring presumption of innocence, the right to confront an accuser, due process, etc. So I want to sow as much chaos for the establishment as possible.

jimjam wrote:Roughly three out of four registered voters surveyed in recent polls supported higher taxes on the wealthy.

I expect that to increase after upper middle class people realize--especially in blue states--that they will not get as much of a tax cut. However, as I have said before, it's not earned income taxes that are the issue. It is actual possession of wealth and capital gains.

JohnRawls wrote:Not all reasons are related to corruption actually.

Right. This is why I think that the anti-GOP types represented by jimjam are missing how the wealthy will ultimately have to address Warren, AOC, etc. They will have to throw the 2020 election to Trump to leave them bitterly disillusioned. I think people here are missing the "crisis" in Virginia as an establishment trick to maintain power.

Tainari88 wrote:Just dig hard on every single source of income and expenditure of theirs both personal and public and trace it to its source. I heard it is very challenging to do so because the law allows the corporations to hide everything with the full force of the unethical law behind it. It is amazing people are not outraged at all this crap!!

They are horrified by the opposite--the government being able to search your finances without probable cause, a warrant, etc. Congress can compel tax returns of corporations. That was how they figured out that Hillary Clinton was the mastermind behind the phony Russian collusion story with respect to Trump.

Sivad wrote:She barely scratched the surface. One thing she forgot to mention is the big back-end payoffs they get for their service to corporate capitalism after they leave electoral politics that come in the form of lucrative lobbying and consulting jobs, millions of dollars for paid speeches, multi-million dollar book and tv deals, highly paid sinecures in academia, crony nepotistic land deals and job offers for children and spouses, etc etc etc. The back-end is the big post-electoral cash out and it's all perfectly legal institutionalized corruption.

That's correct. The Clintons made hundreds of millions after Bill left office, and with Hillary as SecState they cleaned up with the Clinton Foundation too. In fact, my annual ethics training for Foreign Corrupt Practices indicated that I was to avoid precisely the type of thing the Clinton's set up at the Clinton Foundation.

Steve_American wrote:For example, to me looking back Pres. Obama was a Dem sell-out. Literally everything he did helped the top 10% or 1%.

I knew the moment he named his national security adviser in 2008 before he took office that the entire campaign was a sham. Obama bailed out the super rich at the expense of the middle class. Anyone who criticizes the Republicans as the party of the rich and doesn't criticize Obama is either profoundly stupid and should not be allowed to vote, or is exceptionally wicked.

Steve_American wrote:Even the ACA wasn't single-payer and will make the 1% richer. He bailed out the criminals who ran the big banks and left the little people swinging in the wind. They lost their houses, when he didn't spent even 10% of the money Congress appropriated for the purpose of helping homeowners, IIRC. Etc. Etc.

He certainly did. The establishment is not friendly to small business. So small business has very good reason to believe that the establishment is their enemy, because they are.

Godstud wrote:The ACA, however, was not there to help the top 10%.

It absolutely was to help the wealthy. That's why they routinely tried to sell it as a Heritage Foundation plan from the Republicans, and why they ran Romney in 2012 (i.e., RomneyCare in Massachussets was the harbinger). Coverage does not mean quality health care. It just means that providers get paid regardless of the quality of care they provide or don't provide.

Godstud wrote::eh: How? Please provide a source for this claim that providing more poor people with insurance coverage will make rich people richer.

Econ 101--Microeconomics. Providing more people with insurance coverage means that providers get paid when the poor use health services. In effect, it stimulates aggregate demand for health care services. That fattens profit margins for health care providers.

Godstud wrote:(a purely economic system that doesn't work to help people, only individuals).

People are individuals.

Steve_American wrote:Medicare for all ends all that.

No it doesn't. Medicare is why healthcare became expensive in the United States. By allowing providers to bill high for taking care of the elderly, industry effectively inoculated themselves from government take over of private insurance. We can barely afford Medicare for seniors. It is going bankrupt. Trying to apply it to everyone without severe rationing would bankrupt the country almost overnight.

Steve_American wrote:Also, while we are at it we should let the Medicare Admin. force big pharma to sell it drugs at a much lower price.

Trump is for this too. He wants to eliminate the US subsidizing healthcare for Europe by ensuring that they US consumer pays no more than Europeans for the same drugs. This will lower prices for Americans, but it will raise prices for everyone else.

Hindsite wrote: Big pharma is not going work hard to make new drugs if they are not going to get rewarded for their efforts. That is just common sense.

That's true, but the point is that the US consumer is making drugs cheap for Europeans by paying far more money for the same thing. By outlawing that possibility, it forces drug companies to charge more money to European health systems.

Godstud wrote:It's not socialist if you have a dictator. :lol:

Socialism isn't inherently democratic.

Godstud wrote:Since when do insurance company stocks go up when you get more insured at cheaper rates? That would cause insurance stocks to drop, which is why ACA is unpopular amongst the 1%ers. It's pretty "self-evident".

It is. That's why anybody who wants to pull up insurance company stocks since 2010 can see that they have been on a tear ever since ObamaCare was passed. For example, at the beginning of 2009, Cigna (CI) was about $12-13 per share. Today it is $180 per share. It's gone up more than 10x it's value in 2009.

Drlee wrote:A single payer system is far more effective and far more affordable.

It is only more affordable if you introduce cost controls. We can do that without going to single payer.

Drlee wrote:The argument that they will stop producing drugs if they cannot charge extortionate prices for them doe not explain why drugs that cost $X in the US cost less than half that amount in Canada and the UK.

The US does not allow collective bargaining on drugs, not even for Medicare. You have to address the cost problem in order for anything government run to be even remotely feasible.

Drlee wrote:And in the case of the Hep C drugs, in Africa they cost less than 1% of what they cost here.

Pharmas are allowed to give the drugs away cheap and charge more for other drugs and markets to make up the difference. Eliminate these practices, and you would have much lower costs of healthcare for Americans and higher costs in Europe. Costs would become prohibitive in the third world.

Drlee wrote:We have a law precluding the federal government from negotiating drug prices. That is criminal.

Right. That needs to change. Trump is for changing that. All hail Trump!

annatar1914 wrote:Look at Virginia, etc... And President Trump looks now like the sane and moderate one after the SOTU.

Exactly. I still think it's too early to say that Trump gets re-elected for sure, but it is looking that way now. The establishment has a wild fire on its hands, and it has to smother the AOC/Warren wing of the Democrats to save its own bacon now.
#14987397
Drlee wrote: We have a law precluding the federal government from negotiating drug prices. That is criminal.


Isn't this truly amazing ….. when I first heard of this when it passed a few years ago, my jaw dropped. A major major cornerstone of capitalism is using one's leverage to negotiate a deal. BigPharma called in all of their campaign contribution chits for this one …. medicare, one of the if not the largest purchaser of drugs in the world, is required by law to accept whatever prices Big Pharma serves up. Essentially robbery of the Federal treasury. Even D.Trump has spoken out against this travesty from time to time. He has been rather quiet on the subject lately. It is a good assumption that he has been spoken to and decided to expend America's time and energy on his "wall" distraction/farce. It is a good bet that the simple minded lemmings who espouse capitalism and speak with scorn of "socialism" are not aware of this serious symptom of rot in the American "capitalist" arrangement. …………….If I get to rob the federal treasury on behalf of BigPharma, it's capitalism. If you want to give food to a homeless person, he is a lazy liberal bum who should simply get a job and giving him a meal is "socialism".
#14987400
Tainari88 wrote:But it was bound to happen. Once the PRC has a larger market in general? That will be the end of that dominance over many financial aspects that they are used to dominating. I don't even predict it. The Wall Street Journal said it. Let me find the video @Rancid ?


Yes and no. I agree and disagree with your post.

I could make this a very long post, but it's off topic and I don't feel like spelling it all out right now.

First let me address your last bit with the super computers. The thing people don't know about the super computer world is that the list of TOP500 (There's actually a list that is constantly getting updated with the top 500 super computers in the world) is constantly changing. Most super computers leap frog each other and what not. The top 2 super computers in the world are currently in the USA. The 3rd is in China. At some point the Chinese will take the top spot, but then the USA will just take again in due time. It's been that way for a while. Ultimately, I don't think the number of super computers a country has is really correlated to long term success of the nation. It's also not an indication of technological innovation over all in a given country. I think it's just media shit that gets overblown.

I agree that the US will lose dominance overall, that's obvious. However, I do not agree that China will have the world as its playground either. Distrust of China is at all time highs around the globe (my theory is, this is one reason so many Latin American states back Guiado rather than Maduro, they don't want China in their backyard... better the devil you know, than the one you don't know...). I also recall reading how distrust of China in Latin America has been on the rise as well over the last few decades. The US losing dominance just means that it will need to cooperate more and not fuck around with with EU, non-China Asian countries, Latin America, etc. more. This is a very very very good thing actually.

As for the financial markets going China's way. I do not believe this will happen. No non-Chinese business on the planet will want the global trade currency to be controlled by an authoritarian government like China that lies about and often doesn't publish its own economic data. Obviously China is slated to have a lot of influence and power, but the world will not become their playground. I've also talk about in other threads how I strongly believe that their strength right now, is actually their biggest weakness. As China grows in strength, there will be more resistance against them globally.

In short, with the complexity of the world increasing, and the need for cooperation increasing. China's strategy of isolating itself further and further (technological isolation in particular) will fail in the long run. It might fail faster than we think too.
#14987402
The system is flawed. It's built on legal bribery and legal corruption. AOC is right. These are facts everyone knows. She's young enough and inexperienced enough where she hasn't been corrupted by it...yet.

This is what makes Bernie Sanders so extraordinary...he's experienced and old and still hasn't been corrupted. AOC is naive on lots of things but not this.
#14987407
@blackjack21 , I just wanted to reply to a couple things you said in your post;

Trump is not a life long professional politician.


Well... Sort of. There are close personal connections between President Trump and former Presidents Reagan and Nixon, friends and mentors and advisors such as Roy Cohn and Roger Stone among just a few, and I know they met publicly and privately. President Trump was groomed for this for a long time, for the right time, by the political and business circles he represents. The victory of 2016 didn't just start in 2015, but actually years before in reality.

I do not like what these guys want to do in the Economic sphere, but I understand it, they are real men tackling real world problems like adults, and with worldviews inimical to Socialism or Communism in any form, they believe in the promise of Capitalism at least for they and those like them. The intrepid and enterprising, sturdy, sober, industrious and thrifty, yet risk taking and ambitious. Patriotic and capable of courage, sacrifice, and leadership. Any sane society would rejoice to be led by such men, regardless perhaps of their personal morals, or even belief in God or religiousity, despite the fact that a deficit in that certain area leads to fatal hubris and social mistakes.

People should take Trump seriously, but Liberals failed to do so with Nixon and Reagan either, so there's that. They had the measure of the Bushes, and McCain and Romney though...

Exactly. I still think it's too early to say that Trump gets re-elected for sure, but it is looking that way now. The establishment has a wild fire on its hands, and it has to smother the AOC/Warren wing of the Democrats to save its own bacon now.


See, this is sober assessment, sometimes lacking here and elsewhere. You and I ''get along'' here on PoFo for that reason, even though our political and socio-economic ideologies are no doubt profoundly different.

It reminds me that in the Cold War as in WWII, Soviets and Americans could respect each other and even work out treaties and arrangements with each other, because they were red-blooded men who often had seen war up close and intimately, whereas the long ''peace'' and illusionary ''prosperity''has rendered many soft and delusional. Each System post-war was headed by men much as I described earlier.

Here we are, in 2019, Old Left and Old Right basically, saying much the same thing. It's curious is it not?
#14987409
annatar1914 wrote:See, this is sober assessment, sometimes lacking here and elsewhere. You and I ''get along'' here on PoFo for that reason, even though our political and socio-economic ideologies are no doubt profoundly different.

Agreed. We also understand the more cynical side of deep state politics.

What I find humorous about the people clamoring for AOC is that they are utterly silent on issues that they rail against Republicans for when it happens to Democrats, and they still try to present themselves as not partisan. I used to be a Republican and I actively root for the defeat of many Republicans, like Paul Ryan for example. Yet, our ideologues on Judge Roy Moore or Brett Kavanaugh have nothing to say about the executive branch of Virginia.

They are also pretty silent about the a quarter of a year of protests in France with the Gilets Jaunes. The best mainstream coverage from those events now comes from RT. By contrast, the US mainstream media gives the story little coverage and YouTube actively censors non-establishment outlets.

Meanwhile, the right in America understands how Putin has played a weak hand into a much stronger one. For example:



I would add that Christians Bet on Trump and Won is the left's more profound fear of Trump and Russia--resurgent Christianity. The attack of the homosexuals on Christianity has backfired badly.
#14987416
blackjack21 wrote:Her philosophy is to print money and give away the store. That's the fastest path to third world status. Every time it is tried it fails miserably. Her methodology is more or less the same as any other demagogue.

AOC is a liar too. The liberal media hasn't called her out on her lies. The British commentaor Steve Hilton on his show The Next Revolution is the only one that revealed she said too opposite things within a a couple hours apart.



Check it out at about the 9 minute mark.
#14987425
Hindsite wrote:AOC is a liar too. The liberal media hasn't called her out on her lies.
What's the problem? You fucking adore Trump and he's the biggest liar of them all! It's not just a bit hypocritical of you to say you don't like liars, when you worship one. :knife:

Fox News? really? Give me a fucking break... :lol:

Note: This is an opinion piece, and it's NOT factual but simply his opinion. You need to learn to tell actual news from spin and opinions... some day.
#14987435
Godstud wrote:What's the problem? You fucking adore Trump and he's the biggest liar of them all! It's not just a bit hypocritical of you to say you don't like liars, when you worship one. :knife:

Fox News? really? Give me a fucking break... :lol:

Note: This is an opinion piece, and it's NOT factual but simply his opinion. You need to learn to tell actual news from spin and opinions... some day.

Mr. Hilton presented the facts where AOC said one thing and then said the opposite thing later. Listen and you can hear her say it in her own words between the 9 and 12 minute mark. That is not opinion. What the liberal media say about Trump when they claim he is the biggest liar is opinion.
#14987447
Hindsite wrote:What the liberal media say about Trump when they claim he is the biggest liar is opinion.
:lol: Actually, they simply show how he lies by playing back what he has said. You're simply a cultist who thinks Trump can do no wrong, even while he lies to your face.

Stupid.
#14987453
The bottom line is that currently the bribes and lies and corruption and falsehoods are not serving the majority of working people in the USA. So? Something has to evolve. How it evolves is in question....there are in my opinion various possibilities:

1)There is further polarization in the political ranks with the squishy middle grounders and moderates being squeezed out and the far Right and the far Left duke it out and one or the other comes out on top....or

2)The corrupt take over and we have a very authoritarian de facto dictatorship and conflict between the far right elitists and corporate masters who coalesce to keep power and mass riots in the streets, some economic crisis to accompany that as well.

3) Far left take over and spanking banker, corporate/sellout Right politicians in the ass very very hard until there is a change in power structure. This also requires an economic meltdown FIRST before things improve.


Those are the alternatives. And it has to come down one of three ways. Which way? Your guess is as good as mine! ;)
#14987468
People should take Trump seriously, but Liberals failed to do so with Nixon and Reagan either, so there's that. They had the measure of the Bushes, and McCain and Romney though...


You are aware that Nixon was a liberal and the by today's standards, so was Reagan on social issues. You do recall that Reagan enacted amnesty for almost all illegal aliens. Right?

By Tea Party standards, Bush, McCain and Romney were all too liberal. Certainly Hillary was more conservative on the economy and international affairs than either of the Bushes.

What I find humorous about the people clamoring for AOC is that they are utterly silent on issues that they rail against Republicans for when it happens to Democrats, and they still try to present themselves as not partisan. I used to be a Republican and I actively root for the defeat of many Republicans, like Paul Ryan for example. Yet, our ideologues on Judge Roy Moore or Brett Kavanaugh have nothing to say about the executive branch of Virginia.

They are also pretty silent about the a quarter of a year of protests in France with the Gilets Jaunes. The best mainstream coverage from those events now comes from RT. By contrast, the US mainstream media gives the story little coverage and YouTube actively censors non-establishment outlets.


True. I am a life long republican too. I used to be surprised at the republican messaging and its inconsistency. I have come to understand that the republicans only really are playing to a crowd of about 30% of voters and have written the rest of them off. These are the ones who protect their gerrymandered seats. Republicans are not a party. They are a tribe.
#14987471
Drlee wrote:
You are aware that Nixon was a liberal and the by today's standards, so was Reagan on social issues. You do recall that Reagan enacted amnesty for almost all illegal aliens. Right?

By Tea Party standards, Bush, McCain and Romney were all too liberal. Certainly Hillary was more conservative on the economy and international affairs than either of the Bushes.



True. I am a life long republican too. I used to be surprised at the republican messaging and its inconsistency. I have come to understand that the republicans only really are playing to a crowd of about 30% of voters and have written the rest of them off. These are the ones who protect their gerrymandered seats. Republicans are not a party. They are a tribe.


Well that tribe if it doesn't change is soon to be obsolete @Drlee because it is failing to adapt to the changing demographic base of most of the youth. The baby boomers are on their way out and the millenials are not going to be far right Tea party folk and old white men with money to burn.

All political parties either adapt to changing circumstances or perish. If the Republicans refuse to deal with a base beyond their 30% the socialists like AOC and Bernie and company are going to pressure and pressure and might just take over the power positions over time in both the congress, senate and executive branch. Then if two or three of those old fogey conservative judges die on the SCOTUS? You might have a clean sweep in mid century (21st) of the USA political framework.

People are not going to continue to decline in income, power and lack of change forever. Just not going to happen.
#14987474
Tainari88 wrote: The baby boomers are on their way out and the millenials are not going to be far right Tea party folk and old white men with money to burn.


There are claims that millenials aren't as left wing as the media might protray them. For example, I recall reading a repo saying that millenials are more pro-gun than gen-x.

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